The Journey Ahead

With their new album, Mayday Parade have looked to their past and the adventure they’ve been on to help to create some of the best songs ever. Here, we look back on some of the moments that have allowed them to still be here doing what they love…

- Jack Rogers

When all that you know is taken away, then who exactly are you? That was a question that faced Mayday Parade when after spending the last decade and a half in each other’s company, they were suddenly unable to be together because of the COVID pandemic. Years of building, touring, bonding and growing were suddenly a distant memory rather than a constant reality. It hit them harder than they could ever have expected, especially in terms of their creativity. “It felt like we were so limited, and there is a lot of frustration that comes from that,” vocalist Derek Sanders explains.“At the start of the pandemic, it was hard to find the motivation to write at first. I would try and straight away hit a wall. It was so hard to know how to feel about anything that was going on because we didn’t know what was going on.”

“Being away from each other for so long was a lot,” bassist Jeremy Lenzo adds. “At this point in my life, I have been with this band longer than I have been with my parents or anybody else at that. Half of my life has been spent with this band and these people. So having two years of not seeing them, those feelings of being isolated, locked up and alone then made it into this record.”